Nine years ago today China conducted a test of an antisatellite
(ASAT) weapon against one of its own satellites, creating more
than 3,000 pieces of space debris and earning international
condemnation. A State Department official today credited U.S.
diplomacy as one factor in leading China to avoid such
debris-generating tests since then.

Mallory Stewart, Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Emerging Security Challenges and Defense
Policy in the State Department's Bureau of Arms Control,
Verification and Compliance spoke at the Atlantic Council today
at an event marking the anniversary of the 2007 ASAT test.
Stewart noted that China has conducted additional ASAT tests in
the intervening years, but none that created "what some have
conservatively estimated to be one-sixth of the existing radar
trackable debris" in Earth orbit.

The consequences of the 2007 test, which will endanger
satellites for decades to come, catalyzed U.S. and international
efforts to ensure that the space domain is not ruined by
irresponsible actions and remains usable for future generations
-- what has become known as space sustainability.

Stewart credited the "huge international outcry" and
diplomatic initiatives by the United States and others to
"inspire responsible behavior in space" as factors in convincing
China to avoid debris-generating ASAT tests since then. She did
not specify what those additional Chinese ASAT tests were, but
the State Department
publicly criticized China for a 2013 test and experts
believe there have been others. The Secure World Foundation has
a
fact sheet
listing them.

She also said that China may have realized its mistake since
it has had to maneuver its own satellites to avoid the debris.
Just as the United States and Soviet Union learned first-hand
about the consequences of debris-generating ASAT tests during
the Cold War, China may have as well and thus chosen a course
of "strategic restraint" in finding other ways to conduct such
tests.

Another catch phrase that has taken hold since the Chinese
ASAT test is space situational awareness -- the need for better
knowledge about where everything is in orbit and, for
maneuverable satellites, where they are going. Early in the
Obama Administration, State Department and Defense Department
officials began describing space as "congested, contested and
competitive." Today Stewart joked that the government "loves"
alliteration and discussions about the "three Cs" are meant to
prevent the "three Ms" -- "miscommunication, misperception and
miscalculation."

The State Department engages in bilateral space security
dialogues with a number of countries, Stewart recounted, along
with multilateral efforts to develop norms for responsible
behavior in space. For several years, the latter activity took
place in part under the rubric of development of an
"international code of conduct." That effort faltered at a
United Nations meeting last summer, but Stewart asserted that it
laid the groundwork for "subsequent clarity and work on
additional principles" everyone could agree on.

Defining terms was one of the challenges in those
discussions, she explained.

What constitutes a "space weapon" has been debated for
decades. President Jimmy Carter opened negotiations with the
Soviet Union to limit the development of space weapons in the
1970s, but the Soviets wanted to categorize the space shuttle as
a weapon, for example.

Stewart remains optimistic that, over time, consensus can be
reached leading eventually to a treaty, "but what we don't want
to do is jump into a treaty headlong" without understanding the
definitions and ensuring it is verifiable.

Involving the commercial sector is critical, she said. It
is a "collaboration that has to work" to establish norms of
responsible behavior in space effectively.